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Who he's now targeting to be Penn State's next football coach got a bit more jumbled Tuesday.

But athletic director Dr. David Joyner couldn't be more clear.

He's still expecting Bill O'Brien's successor to be named soon.

In a statement released by the university Tuesday afternoon, Joyner raved about the quality of the search to date, calling it "robust" and reiterated he wanted it to be completed within days.

"The search for the new leader of the Penn State football program is progressing very well," Joyner said. "We are on schedule and I anticipate having the new head coach in place in a matter of days. The search is robust as we anticipated it would be and we have an excellent pool of candidates. I have heard from many coaches, or their representatives, who have expressed their interest in the position."

That statement was released a bit less than an hour after perhaps the strongest national report that one candidate was emerging from the pack. CBS Sports reported that Penn State has focused on Vanderbilt coach James Franklin, saying he has emerged as the clear frontrunner for the job.

If accurate, that would reflect a change in direction, as reports Monday indicated Scranton native and former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Munchak became the leader in the coaching race after interviewing with Penn State's search committee in Nashville on Sunday.

Just hours before the Franklin report, ESPN reported Munchak would interview with the Detroit Lions on Friday for their open head coaching position.

Munchak and Miami head coach Al Golden are the only two coaches that sources confirmed have interviewed with the committee. Interim coach Larry Johnson Sr. was expected to be given an interview this week, though. Franklin spent last week coaching the Commodores leading up to Saturday's BBVA Compass Bowl, and following Vanderbilt's win over Houston, he flew to Pasadena, Calif., on Sunday, where he served as an analyst for ESPN's coverage of the BCS National Championship Game.

He returned to Nashville from that assignment Tuesday, and it is unclear when he interviewed with Penn State during that time, if at all.

Franklin is also on the Washington Redskins' radar, and the 41-year-old Langhorne native has become a hot prospect among the coaching ranks after leading the once-hapless Vanderbilt program to three consecutive nine-win seasons for the first time in its history.

Ties to Pennsylvania are also traits not exclusive to Munchak. The smooth-talking, fast-moving Franklin was a star quarterback at East Stroudsburg University from 1991 through 1994, where he learned the basics of the pass-happy, West Coast-style offense on which he has made his coaching name. The knock on Franklin is that he might have NFL hopes, and during a time when many around Penn State believe the program needs stability over style after O'Brien's departure, few want to risk bringing on another coach who will be looking at the job as a steppingstone.

In the last 16 years, Franklin has held eight different jobs with seven different universities or professional teams.

Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com @psubst on Twitter

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